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How does the project align with your institution’s priorities and needs?

Why did you choose the outcome and library factor as areas to examine?

Why was the team composition appropriate?

At Western University of Health Sciences, faculty are embracing the flipped classroom model. In the past, we noticed that students were not performing well on the assignments. We wanted to know: Is the flipped or didactic method of instruction more effective at preparing third-year Optometry students to use evidence-based medicine in clinical practice? This course is taught in two sections, which provided us an opportunity to perform a quasi-experimental study with two cohorts.

Team members included the instructor of the course, who is also the Dean of the College of Optometry, an Optometry faculty member who would see them in the semester following this course, the Director of Institutional Research Effectiveness, and four librarians. We also included two faculty from the College of Podiatric Medicine who are experts in EBM as consultants for assessment, and to include an aspect of interprofessional research.

What are the significant contributions of your project?

What was learned about assessing the library’s impact on student learning and success?

What was learned about creating or contributing to a culture of assessment on campus?

What, if any, are the significant findings of your project?

We did not find much literature evaluating the effectiveness of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) instruction using the flipped model. Literature was split between advantages and disadvantages of flipping the classroom for other disciplines, so we wanted to see if it would work for EBM.

The librarians learned that faculty members on our campus want to include us in student learning assessment, we just need to reach out to them. Faculty for this project worked with us on every step, including modifying the assignment and rubric and planning instructional activities. We also learned that we need to be included in student assessment, and are working to have more library assessments in University level surveys.

We concluded that, while there was no statistically significant difference in student performance on assignments, qualitatively, students who received flipped instruction seemed to have progressed to more complex steps of the Evidence-Based Process.

What will you change as a result of what you learned (– e.g., institutional activities, library functions or practices, personal/professional practice, other)?

How does this project contribute to current, past, or future assessment activities on your campus?

Most importantly, I learned not to rush into research as a result of this project. Any research that I conduct now will be thoroughly planned out.

We will use the information learned here in future assessments of teaching Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM). This will be throughout Western University of Health Sciences, not just the College of Optometry. Since flipping seemed more effective, we can use the evidence gathered here to persuade other Colleges include more hands on activities to reinforce EBM concepts.

We are currently working with our Institutional Research and Effectiveness Department conducting program review for the library. We can use this information with WASC to demonstrate that we are effectively teaching information literacy because we are able to draw parallels between each of these standards and EBM.

Librarians work with the Dean of the College of Optometry to teach Evidence-Based Eye Care. We researched the impact of flipping the class on retention and ability to apply Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) concepts. Cohort 1 received lecture. Cohort 2 viewed videos before class and did hands-on activities. We found no statistical significance between the cohorts’ assignments. However, qualitatively, Cohort 1 focused on EBP step 1; Cohort 2 advanced to step 2.